Tag: genomics

It is an acknowledged truth that the provision of healthcare, across all of our mature societies – has to change. There are too many issues, from provision of elderly services, to personalised ways of dealing with serious illness, and every issue in between – where conventional services are rapidly no longer fit for purpose. eHealth is all very well – but at some point, there is a need to deliver practical changes.

These changes will result in less hospital provision, and more community based healthcare, which will impact on costs, and also open new areas and market opportunities.

The question until now, has been ; “Well, practically speaking – what are we going to do about it – and are you ready for it”?

The upcoming HOSPITAL PLUS INNOVATION Conference, (www.hospitalplusinnovation.com) – is your Forum to meet with other practical vendors of answers, and purveyors of new services, and thought-leaders – to help define what are these new services that will carry healthcare provision forward . Taking place in Denmark, one of the leading areas of advanced healthcare provision, on the 10th/11th October, the Conference covers everything from new twists on current services, i.e., EHR, Theatre Management, Community Services – through to cutting edge Genomics, Personalised medicine.

HOSPITAL PLUS INNOVATION is a unique scenario that brings together for the first time, conventional hospital demands but with new and advanced ways of dealing with these.

This is an essential venue for you to be a part, if you are serious about your company role in this future. The List of Sponsors is already extensive and comprehensive, from all areas of public and corporate healthcare.

This Conference will help you shape your own roadmap, where you can learn from others who have complementary experience.

When the slides failed during Mahad Huniche’s erudite address on the personalisation of healthcare at the recent HIMSS eHealth Europe Conference – he did what every speaker should do. He ad-libbed, and carried on. And in doing so – he said two things that were seismic in their importance.

The first – that we are entering an era of disruptive clinical IT – everybody “got”. The second – that healthcare will now be driven by you and I as “consumers”, and as such, will be governed by eCommerce technology, rather than clinical technology – nobody got.

Whether we like it or not, the wearable technology that is ever more prevalent, will be the source of our own health data – and it will be transmitted, in real time, to wherever we want to send it – i.e., to places where they can monitor this and do something about it. In short what this means is a reversal of the current necessity of a/having to travel to a place called a hospital; and b/ having to use monolithic IT called “EHR Solutions” – to manage said information. It also means that the driver of future health improvements will be you and I, as we will insist that our healthcare givers can monitor us remotely; and that the hospital importance of people like CIOs etc, will fade into one of support. We just don’t need it any more.

This will do two things; first, at a General Doctor level, fewer people will need to see their local GP – he will already know their info; this means that the GP (according to one that was discussing this with me on the plane recently) – can now spend as much time as they wish, sorting out the patients who are truly sick, as opposed to those who just “think” they are. It means less people coming into the A&E areas of hospitals (for the above same reason). And more important – less people requiring on demand beds in hospitals. Our doctors will be able to tell us straightaway, remotely, if we need to be admitted as such.

The interesting point about all this – is that it;’s not like this technology is not available already, Even places such as Turkey have their own regional connected patient record App, that will be the platform for the sort of enhanced personalisation we describe above – and this explains why Steve Leiber, CEO of HIMSS was already on a plane to Turkey even before the applause had died down from his opening Conference keynote speech.

The other interesting point, is that this consumer driven change – flies in the face of existing Hospital wisdom, who are continuing to invest in ever larger and all embracing “big patient record systems” – that will both be too cumbersome to give any actual clinical benefit, and too inflexible to cope with the personalisation that is not just required by the mobile wearable world we are all embracing, but by even now, some of the key modules that need to be stand alone in their own right – Theatre Management is a good example – if they are to cope with how individual communities want their healthcare.

What is worse – is that very few “communities” are geared up at a bureaucratic level – to handle this. When we talked to several Kommuns in Scandinavia recently, their assessment was that it will be at least twelve months before they could look at a “Procurement” to put in place relevant services.

The result – is that not only will you and I start to define our own healthcare needs – but that we will go to places called Supermarkets, to obtain this. The ICA supermarket in Scandinavia is deep in expansion of its Apotek chain of walk in healthcare shops. It can only be a matter of time before those services expand.

How so?

Because retail and supermarkets are the bedrock of eCommerce. And the very technology that drives the analysis of every purchase that you and I make in a store, is already being used to calculate the personalisation of Genomes and Genomics, as well as manage the health data wirelessly sent, all the time from yours and my Apple Watch.

Which brings me back to Mahad and his unfortunate slides. Sometimes you need to get to the horses mouth, the deeper vision. Who needs powerpoint anyway?

We take a look at the upcoming eHealth Europe HIMSS Conference in Malta, and ask; where does the UK figure?

According to the Independent Newspaper recently, UK Healthcare provision, is on a par with some of the “lesser” countries in Europe. It is now no better than places such as; Poland, Turkey, etc.

This is both a kick in the teeth to the good people of Poland and Turkey, and it is also misleading. It is not the case that the UK is falling downwards. It’s just that other places are doing better. Turkey in particular, ever since Mehmet Atasever, former VP Health Ministry in Ankara, met me at a HIMSS Conference in Brussels, and handed me his 5 year Plan – has been progressive and focussed on new solutions, custom built, but (despite recent politics) – open to European links. Key areas of advance are the provision of Insurance based treatments, to help finance the general population access to five-star hospital Treatment, etc.

And it is not the case that the NHS is completely underfunded. We have shown in earlier Posts, that Hospitals can usually find the money when needed. The question may be that surprising answer, which is; maybe Hospitals don’t actually “want” to find the answer?

To get to that conclusion, you need to compare UK Health provision, with that in Scandinavia. Because of the growth of Medical Science Parks, in Sahlgrenska Gothenburg; and Pharma, in Lund and Gothenburg – there is a stimulated market in acceptance of new technologies, to help drive better care, which is now regarded as the top area in Europe (including the UK). This explains why some 20% of Visitors to eHealth Europe in a few weeks, are from Scandinavia – but only 5% are from the UK.

The UK has its own Health Conference, the week before, in London. Our question is therefore – why so? It surely has to make more sense to bring everyone together under one common roof? As we have seen above, going our own way is not helping us in terms of keeping up with better services.

Nevertheless, things might be changing. Although we ourselves will be Moderating the Nordics session of eHealth Europe, on “bridging data and genomics” – the Genomics England organisation has just appointed a new Commercial Director.

There are key and specific areas of clinical provision, where the UK is expert. What is now needed is to bring this acceptance of new processes – into other areas, particularly IT.

We look at how healthcare provision is moving from a one size fits all approach – to a personalised and more insight driven delivery

We are delighted to say that we will be moderating the above session at the prestigious eHealth Conference, in Malta later this May. The specific time and date is 12.15 – 13.15 on the 10th May, the first day of the Conference.

Hosted in the Nordic Community, the session brings together key speakers from Pharma and Government, to look at how we deliver a personalised healthcare to each one of us.

We will publish deeper details as soon as these are made public. But in meantime – do make a point of meeting us at the Session. Please register your Comments below, so we can include as many of these as possible in our time together.